North Providence police Capt. Alfred Barra takes aim with a laser gun at an image. Lt. Michael Laurito, rear, operates the device.

The Providence Journal / Andrew Dickerman

NORTH PROVIDENCE — Load your weapon.

It was late morning at the public safety complex. In a darkened room on the police station’s lower floor, Capt. Alfred Barra casts his eyes toward the image projected on the wall, that of a man standing in the hallway on the second floor of a tenement.

The man on the screen turns, and Barra can see that he has a gun. “Don’t shoot, I’m a police officer,” the man pleads.

Barra has his own weapon at the ready. “Put your gun down,” he orders. “Put your gun down. Walk backwards. Kneel down.”

But the man doesn’t. The suspect ducks behind a corner and fires. Barra lets off several salvos. The shots hit the man in the leg, arm and torso. The final shot is lethal, hitting the man in the head.

The $60,000 piece of equipment reports the damage: Glock 17 fired eight shots, 5 hits, 1 lethal.

To some it might seem like a glorified video game, but members of the department say the firearms rraining simulator is just the thing to build confidence. The equipment was on loan to the department recently through the Rhode Island Interlocal Risk Management Trust.

What makes the simulations interesting is that scenarios need not follow the same plot. From the moment that Barra confronted the “suspect” in the hall, Lt. Michael Laurito had his fingers on a keyboard, choosing among different outcomes.

Another officer stepping into the same scene might have confronted a situation in which a gunman steps from the door, using a woman as his shield. Or the whole thing could have ended peacefully, with the gunman following orders and surrendering.

“I’m not sure how many scenarios there are, but I believe there are hundreds,” Barra said.

“Lieutenant Laurito can make the person shoot at you or come at you with a knife, or have him give up. He can send out a signal to make your gun jam. He controls everything.”

The simulator also allows the officer to use a chemical deterrent.

Are there right and wrong responses?

To some degree, yes. Consider another scene in which a patrol officer makes a routine stop on a car that ran a red light. Instead of stopping where he is supposed to, the driver continues and finally parks in front of a house. Refusing the policeman’s order to stay in his car, the driver gets out with a baseball bat, arguing with the officer.

Just then, the garage door opens and about eight men walk menacingly toward the officer. Some are holding bats.

“Stay back, stay back,” the officer orders. As the men come closer, many officers in that situation open fire, mowing down five people. Great job, some would say. Five shots fired, five lethal.

“There was just one problem,” says Barra. “The five men who were up in front were unarmed. The ones with the baseball bats were in the rear.”

After each scenario, Laurito or one of the other officers critiques the response, offering suggestions on how the call could have been handled differently. “If I were there I probably would have made the same decision,” says Barra. “It’s a tough call.”

There are not many subway trains in North Providence, but one of the most popular scenarios among the officers is one that takes place in a New York City subway station. A man is acting suspiciously after going through a turnstile — and depending on how the training officer wants it to end, he will either pull out identification, a knife or a gun.

Then there’s the woman sitting alone in a car on a dark street. “It’s all right,” she says. “I’m a police officer.”

Asked to show her identification, she leans toward her glove compartment, but picks up a handgun lying next to her and fires. The officer might have had a different outcome if he had noticed the shiny object next to her.

There are others: the policeman drives up outside a bank ATM and comes upon a man with a gun abducting a woman who had just taken out some cash. This is another tough one, the police say. The man holds the woman in such a way that it’s hard to get a good shot at him. He pulls her into a van and drives off.

Couldn’t the officer have shot out the tires? “Not really,” says Laurito. “If you do that, there’s a good chance the gunman will shoot the hostage.”

To prevent portraying every scenario as fatal, the trainers make sure there are enough situations in which the suspect gives himself up.

The Police Department has conducted training on the simulator every year for about four years. All 71 members of the department participate.

Says Barrera: “It’s just one more piece of equipment that we use to train. The more training we can get, the more efficient we become on our jobs.”

rdujardi@projo.com